Socio-cognitive presence in e-learning: a study of intercultural telecollaboration between French and Chinese students

Abstract

This article focuses on socio-cognitive presence in e-learning. Empirically, it draws on a telecollaboration experiment in which sixteen geographically dispersed Chinese and French students, organized into small groups, carried out a series of collaborative activities using socio-digital communication artefacts. The aim was to determine whether, during these activities, social interactions between students had generated a socio-cognitive presence. The results reveal that this presence, resulting from mediated communicative transactions between group members, developed to varying degrees across the different groups, influenced by several factors such as the volume and mode of interaction, the quality of relationships established within the group, the group’s mode of functioning, and cultural differences. Furthermore, the emergence and level of socio-cognitive presence within all the groups studied were closely linked to the students' agency, both individually and collectively. Similarly, the higher this level was, the more it promoted intercultural learning.